The Martini
by GaeDearg
Summary: It'd be great if there was a hero. One who worked hard and pulled off the impossible just like in a Hollywood flick. Unfortunately, the age of heroes is dead and the movies are only fiction. But. . .
1. Chapter 1

The humming of jet engines and the continual sound of wind rushing along an aircraft's outer hull filled a spacious, red lite interior with a sleep-inducing white noise. Sitting alone near the end of the paratrooper's drop hanger, in the last seat was a tall, solemn-looking man with a head of short, stark white hair and deeply bronzed skin. The parachute pack he wore over his black carapace armor was too bulky to allow him to sit normally. Instead, it was forcing him to hunch over and rest his bare arms on black pant legs. He palmed a small, red gemstone pendant in one of his hands and was focusing his gray eyes on the digital clock that was mounted above the door at the front of the hanger.

"00:09."

Eleven hours had already past from the time he took off from Britain. A short amount of time in the grander scheme of the worldwide disaster that had been in motion for months now.

"Rise and shine, sweet cheeks." A raspy female voice called out over the intercoms. "We're five minutes out from your destination. Make sure you got your big boy pants on and get ready to walk the plank."

Stashing away the gem to his pocket, the man tapped a button on the radio device he wore around the back of his neck. His mic cracked to life but before he could speak the sound of hacking coughs cut him short..

"Are you alright?" He asked when the coughing calmed down, well aware of what the symptom signaled.

"I would be if my only passenger wasn't brooding in the back of my ship the whole trip. You know, a lady'll start to get the wrong impression if you treat her like this." The woman responded with a friendly jab but there was minuet downshift from her tone.

"And here I thought you didn't have any interest men."

"Hmm, right, you are a little too muscular. But, I have a feeling you'd look pretty good if I could fit you in a dress." She said.

Emiya's lips spread into a small smile as an audible chuckle left his throat.

"There it is. I know you don't need me to tell you this, but make sure you remember to smile on ground floor. You wouldn't be a very good hero if you couldn't inspire some hope with those pearly whites of yours." She said.

"Thanks, Sheryl, I really owe you one," Emiya said.

It was a relief to be able to talk to his friend one last time. But the underlying bitterness at his inability to be able to save another person from their fate ate at him, even more so in this situation. Naturally, he kept his feelings from leaking out into his voice.

"Don't be silly, I'm just paying back a five-year-old debt. But if you really want to, take me out for drinks when this is all said and done." Sheryl punctuated the offer with a small laugh. It was her own way of attempting to fight the reality of her situation, but hints of nervousness were already starting to leak through.

Emiya didn't respond, the last thing he wanted was to let a friend die and break their spirit at the same time.

A blaring alarm echoed through the hold for a brief moment and the hydraulic pistons of the ramp next to him activated. The high-pitched, buzzing hum they produced was quickly replaced by the sharp sound of air whipping past the opening on the plane. Emiya looked out into dark night sky in front of him, the missing lights of mankind deepened its abyss-like qualities. It was truly a sight that would be stunning to anyone, however, all he could see in the pitch was countless lives that continued to flicker out of existence.

He took a deep breath and uttered a simple phrase to focus his will before modifying his physical form. The enhanced body his Reinforcement granted him would make the high-altitude night drop and subsequent landing much easier. It was one of few indispensable skills.

He tugged the parachute's harness straps to make sure they were snug. While it was beyond reason that someone with his long years of experience would make a mistake donning the equipment, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Sherly's voice broke Emiya out of his mechanical checks just as he finished equipping his goggles.

"Drop in:10... 9..." She paused before hitting one, "Good luck, hero. For all of us." The last words Sheryl spoke to him held a tinge of futility.

Emiya took in a deep breath and ran forward plunging head first off the back of the Boeing C-17's loading ramp.

The wind immediately took him into its smothering embrace as his body started its fourteen-thousand meter plummet to the surface below. White noise took over his sense of hearing and the night tried to blind him but he ignored it and tucked in his arms after making some corrections to his positioning. Eight-five seconds. For eighty-five seconds of terminal velocity travel his body would be an invisible bullet, no, blade, aimed directly at the city of Megurigaoka.

* * *

Back when the first case of attacks happened, before the outbreak became an unstoppable avalanche, Emiya Shirou had just gotten back to Britain. It was a peaceful, sunny morning, and the airport lines were moving with a grace that defied belief. The kind of day that made one think that everything was "too quiet." Emiya wrote it off as his imagination. After spending two months rescuing non-combatants in an active theater of war and completing some freelance work for the Clock Tower, it was expected that he would still be on edge. He shook it off and made toward the train station.

A few hours later and he finally reached London.

Walking the familiar city streets he made his way to the small apartment he used as a home base. The interior was spartan in nature but felt like home none the less. He would take his time to unpack and shower. A ritual to unwind that he hadn't broken in the many years since he left Japan after the events of the Holy Grail War. Of course, even before that time, his life was littered with daily rituals, so what was one more if it allowed him to take a small reprieve. While his life's work and goal were important, even he learned to appreciate a lull to refocus and refresh.

After putting on some casual clothes, the only task he had left was to eat. Forgoing the unopened MREs that came home with him, Emiya left to the store for raw ingredients.

That was when it all started.

The moment his feet passed the threshold to leave the supermarket, his mind switched into combat mode. Police sirens flooded the air, accompanied by a chorus of megaphoned voices shouting commands to stand down. People were screaming and running through the streets in the same fashion as stampeding animals. They bulled over those caught unaware and trampled the fallen. Emiya took a single moment to decide where they were coming from and sprinted off in that direction. He didn't get far into the crowd before the problem was revealed.

People were being eaten alive and chased by the slow deliberate steps of their fellow "man." It gave him a fraction of pause.

"The Dead? Here?" Emiya asked under his breathe.

It wasn't often that he was contacted for assistance with some pseudo-Dead Apostle running around. But even he was familiar with the shambling corpses that resembled the zombies of fiction. Only, this was more vicious, not hidden by the cover of night, and in such large scale that it made no sense. Quickly, he began killing the monsters all the while being careful not to display his magic. The action was useless. For every corpse that was killed another popped up, not only that, but plumes of smoke started wafting into the sky from a distance. He was loath to admit it but the mass of undead seemed to swell with every passing moment. The situation was like trying to put out a wick that had already burnt away. To make matters worse, just as he tried to analyze the situation further, a Boeing started to drop out of the sky in that deceivingly slow way in which objects seem to crash from altitude.

With no other choices, Emiya steeled himself as best he could and ran through the cries for help and screams of agony that started overtaking the police sirens. He felt bile rise to the back of his throat and his heart tighten, that was fine, he could hate himself later. Right now, however, he had one goal in mind. Get to the Clock Tower and get some answers.

That was when the problem became an unknown threat.

The Clock Tower didn't have a single answer Emiya liked, not that he could demand much from them. As a freelancer with few ties to existing professors, he didn't have the right too. Yet something about the escalating events outside told him they weren't holding back. That was fine, having the situation boiled down to an unknown threat only narrowed down the available courses of action. He chose the simplest and the hardest, he always did. Save people and make sure they were safe.

The swiftness in which society broke down was awe-inspiring. In a matter of days, public utilities stop functioning and any vehicle, crashed or otherwise, became permanent fixtures to the cityscape. People who'd survived the initial day quickly learned the new rules for life or joined the dirge outside. In this new world, Emiya tried with marginal success to build a safe place for people. Marginal if only for the fact that few people wanted to trust anyone right now. And he wasn't going to be the dictator that forced people who didn't want to be saved into safety, that would only cause problems. As time went on, the flock he watched over grew to a little over a hundred, the number stagnated as fewer and fewer people could be found within the city. From time to time a wry laugh would leave his lips as he started to mock his own attempts to find life, that was fine too. He knew better than anyone that he was a fool.

But even he didn't know just how foolish until he came back from an excursion one day to find a zombie in the barricaded base of operations. He killed it without blinking and a family left in response. Later on that day, he learned their son was fine the day before. And that he only had a small cough from a cold. Looking back on it, he would reprimand himself for not paying closer attention. Based on how quickly things spiraled out of control in the first week, he should've been able to guess what was happening. From that point forward he became more vigilant. Every time someone new changed, he would kill without hesitation. He started leaving less and instead became a haunting specter of death that watched over a hospital sickroom. They hated him for it, he hated himself even more. Eventually, he stopped killing the seemingly inexhaustible supply of undead unless they were an immediate threat to a living being. Whether out of guilt for being unable to keep them alive or just to simply conserve energy, he couldn't say.

More time passed and those he watched over and saved turned into graves marked by makeshift crosses. It didn't matter how many times this sort of thing happened, the loss of life always crushed him. He kept a stoic facade and turned his attention toward finding a solution to the problem at hand. That would keep his mind off his recent failures.

The first place his search lead him was back to the Clock Tower, it was an oasis of life compared to outside, for some reason the magi were unaffected. Atlas was still researching the phenomenon but he doubted they were doing it out of the need to save their fellow man. Disheartened, he headed back to his apartment instead of the empty fort he and other survivors constructed. He tried to strategize but it was impossible with little to no pieces.

It wasn't until the next morning that he discovered a mysterious message sent to him through a magic device. It was only four words, but they couldn't have been more helpful.

**Randall Corporation **

**Megurigaoka Branch**

* * *

As the shaded outline of the city quickly rushed into view the parachute's altimeter triggered at exactly nine-hundred and fourteen meters. In an instant, Emiya's body was jerked backward with the opening of the chute and his headlong dive came to a close. Taking advantage of the now slowed descent, he surveyed the area, his enhanced vision making it possible to pick up and discern shapes with what little scraps of moonlight illuminated the area. The horizon was clear and there were no noticeable threats anywhere within his line of sight. Just like London, Megurigaoka was a ghost town of ruins with only the lumbering forms of the new citizens shambling about at random. Something about the lack of resistance didn't sit well with him. If this mysterious Randall Corporation was responsible in any way for the current apocalypse he would've expected some form of protection in the area. He shelved the train of thought, he would cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, he would land just inside the city limits, as an extra precaution, and then find his way to the Randall building while keeping an eye out for anything unusual. If that lead ended up being nothing, he would search the city for survivors. He reasoned that if he was lucky an employ might still be alive somewhere.

Emiya landed on the top of a small gas station with practiced ease, his steel plated boots ground across the rubble that layered the roof. Quickly abandoning the diving equipment he ran to the edge of the building, making sure to double check for anything suspicious. Only the zombies lurked nearby, some probably attracted by the sound of his landing. With only the mental map he formed from his bird's eye view, Emiya began making his way in the direction of the city's business park.

The atmosphere at ground level was stained with a scent of decaying flesh, the smell lingered so lightly in the air that it irritatingly teased the nose like a word caught on the tip of the tongue. It also had a special way of brushing the back of the throat with a particularly foul taste that took a while to get even a little accustomed to. Emiya carefully but swiftly moved through the streets of the suburbs. The scene was just as bad here as it was most likely was anywhere else. Dried blood stains and the occasional stray limb littered the roads and walkways with no bodies in sight. Only the bloodied footsteps or small droplets leading away were any indications of its previous owners. Ever so often a road would be blocked with some suspicious wreckage but Emiya advanced past it each time without consequence. Even taking care to avoid drawing attention to himself, the chant-like moaning of zombies still managed to be within earshot. It made him think about the possible population of the area, what ratio of people survived the first day, how many fell afterward to the mysterious nature of the illness, and who was unfortunate enough to get caught while scavenging for supplies. He performed the cold calculations with practiced ease, though it was necessary for estimating the number of people in need of help, the pang of guilt his thoughts caused him remained. Shaking his head clear, Emiya couldn't help but get the feeling that maybe this was all some candid zombie action film with him as the lead hero. It was a funny thought for a man his age and it was close to alleviating his currently dower mood.

Sadly, Emiya's intimate familiarity with all the horrors of the current world muted it out. The things he'd seen were a different quality from what he'd experienced in war zones or chasing the odd magi, and it weighed on him all the more because of that. More than just being an affront to his convictions, the current circumstances of the world ate at him on some base level he could never quite explain. He wondered if this unknown calamity was degrading his mind.

"Steel is my Body and Fire is my Blood."

The words cleansed the creeping unease from within and kept his mind steady. No matter how horrid the situation, Emiya Shirou was not allowed to break.

Finally, after a fair distance of travel from where he began, the identical houses and maze-like corridors of the walled suburban streets broke to reveal a park. While he knew this miniature forest was coming up, it was still a relief to have his sense of forward motion rewarded with the new landmark. Moving through the park, rustling bushes and snapping branches alerted him to any meandering undead. It was easier and less costly to just avoid them, especially since Emiya still had the lingering suspicion that there would be hidden enemy forces at this final destination.

Then, out from the corner of his eye, the dull but unmistakable light of glow sticks swayed and rocked. Giving it his full attention he could finally see the human form they were attached too. A dead male, he was dressed in casual, dirty clothing and his face was disfigured with rot.

"**We're in Namekawa Grade School! Please help us. We have food and water."**

After the zombie was felled, he took the sign from around its neck to look for any clues to indicate the location of the school. While guessing and heading in the direction that this unlikely courier came from would be a sound choice, he didn't want to take any chances. The sky view map imprinted on his mind was only rudimentary in nature and getting off course haphazardly could get him lost. Turning the sign over, a small map of the area was attached to the back with scotch tape, it was close to coming off completely as the blood and pus ridden juices of the undead slowly ate into the placard.

With this, the self-imposed mission priorities shifted without a thought. He would head to the Grade school to search and secure the location. He would decide how to proceed from there if any survivors were found.

* * *

Namekawa Grade School was not the first school Emiya had seen and it was doubtful this would be the last. From the shattered and hastily boarded windows, to the location and concentration of blood stains that looked like bottomless pools of black ink in the night. It was another of many constant reminders that the calamity had been unfeeling and unbiased in the chaos it wrought. Shaking off the gravity of the innocent lives lost and making careful note of the mewling, animated cadavers that used to be children, he proceeded onto the premises. With every step, the building told him to turn back. That there were no living beings here and no hope.

Emiya couldn't help but agree. Logically speaking, it was a large complex filled with small children and a limited staff of adults. Even if some escaped and managed to take refuge in a classroom, keeping terrified children in line and looking for supplies would take a superhuman level of ability. Extend that over the months and months of the disaster and the outlook was bleak. The black-clad hero slipped into the front doors with a sigh that spoke of witnessing too many impossibilities to strictly follow the logic of the situation.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

* * *

The crossover no one asked for and another drop in the endless ocean of EMIYA/Shirou fics.

Couldn't get this idea out of my head after reading Gakkou Gurashi, the scene where they talk about heroes after visiting Ebisuzawa's house to be exact. I decided to roll with it since it stuck so hard. Even after saying I refuse to write an Emiya fic, I broke. Lol

Anyway, this is more my kind of wheelhouse as far as stories go and it's helping me flex my muscles while I work on planning my other fic better since I'm starting to take these stories more seriously. Of course, I say that but still haven't tried to find a beta-reader.

That said, this Emiya isn't from any particular route in the VN, I won't elaborate, but I hope I do his character and very peculiar state of being justice.

Oh, and the title is a movie term referring to the last shot on set for the day.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

The wet, meaty flesh of the monsters hit the door of the broom closet without end. Only the occasional jiggling of the door handle stirred its sole occupant to life. It didn't matter how many times the same event occurred. The knob never twisted all the way. Regardless, her body would move on reflex, tiny as it was, to block the door. It happened so often it interrupted sleep and kept her on edge. She wished the sounds would go away but the loss of sight in the pitch-black hole only amplified the sounds coming from outside the door.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

How long had it been since the teachers told them they couldn't go home? How long had it been since her homeroom teacher yanked her out through the desks that blocked the classroom door? There was no telling, the only things that filled her mind were the blur of terrible scenes that had played out in front of her. What she did know about her situation was that she was pushed in here with a few bottles of water and told not to leave or open the door for anyone. The teacher's twisted features and frantic voice were the last things she'd seen, and at the time, she didn't think she was going to be in here very long. Then seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to hours, and eventually, the cramped space swallowed all sense of time. That was when she cried. Loudly, sloppily, desperately, eventually she begged for someone to unlock the door and let her out. That's what attracted the sound that was now slapping at the door. While she couldn't see what was outside she knew without a doubt that they were the scary people her teachers were always trying to keep out.

The girl fumbled weakly for a bottle of water and drank its phantom contents, imagining the cool rush of liquid that would ease her pained throat along with the dull pit in her stomach.

"Daddy, Mommy, Rii."

The tiny voice didn't elicit a response from outside, but that was to be expected. Her voice was so hoarse and dry that it didn't allow her to speak above a whisper.

She curled up into the farthest corner of the room and closed her eyes tight. Any moment now, she would wake up at home. Her parents would comfort her after the bad dream and her kind older sister would walk her to school like normal. It wouldn't happen, but she begged the unfeeling world anyway.

Then, just as she started to nod off, the door handle gave audible _Click!_

* * *

The door was thrown open with just enough force to keep it from slamming. Emiya swung his flashlight, quickly scanning the room for any signs of living humanity. There was none. Only the quick focusing of deer like stares snapped to his spot in the doorway. He slid the door shut and turned off his light, leaving the muffled moans and shuffling desk noises behind him. What he wouldn't give for even a few rays of natural light to reach beyond the front windows of the building. Then again, the vast majority of the dead in this area were primary school children, the sight of their tiny, mutilated, and rotting forms shambling about were always more unsettling than their older counterparts.

"Two more floors."

It was expected that the lowest floor would be devoid of refugees, upper floors tended to be marginally safer since the zombies had difficulty climbing stairs. But if anyone was alive on those upper levels he needed to make sure the proceedings hallways were cleared and the doors shut. The methodology for clearing a school wasn't much different between England and Japan, even if the layouts were different. Making his way to the stairwell, his empty hand roamed back to the combat knife that was sheathed on the small of his back. A precaution just in case something managed to catch him by surprise in this stygian building. Reaching the second floor, Emiya once again made his way down the halls, swiftly laying the tiny, drooling cadavers to final rest.

Class 2-1. Empty.

Class 2-2. Occupied.

Class 2... The pattern continued.

He opened the last door of the floor. Small hands and arms reached out from a meticulous barricade of desks and chairs. They grasped at his legs futilely trying to pull him in toward their unending hunger. Ignoring it, his light scanned the room through the makeshift wall, seven figures in all. Five children, but two adults. This must have been the group asking for help. Emiya tried to keep an emotionless facade but he clenched his jaw. Slowly shutting the door, it brushed away the grasping hands that now seemed more like the vestiges of children pleading for help.

His boot-falls echoed alone through the dead halls as he made his way back to the stairs. Up or down. Search or leave.

It was in that quiet contemplation that a peculiar sound stood out in the night.

"D... Mo... Rii."A small, barely audible voice even to his modified physiology in the dead silence. He cupped his ears listening closer. Emiya knew he hadn't spent enough time alone to start experiencing auditory hallucinations so it had to be real.

Thirty seconds.

One minute; he inhaled deeply and prepared to race against the clock.

"Is anyone there! I'm here to help!"

Within seconds the doors shook as their occupants roused, becoming acutely aware of the living's presence. He listened hard in the dissonance for a response, anything, even the smallest sound to tell him which direction. Nothing.

Then, as boot touched step, a death cry reached him. It was quick and their likely wouldn't be another, but that was all that was needed.

"Third floor."

No longer needing to pay caution to sound, Emiya threw himself up the flight of stairs, boots grinding to a halt as a matte black bow appeared in his hands. Vision sweeping left and right in the darkness, in this enclosed space, with the zombies roused, he wouldn't need sight to locate them. Left. More of them were that direction as well. Arrow after arrow left the bow, each T_wang_ of the string loud enough to rival a gunshot as the hall was cleared with surgical precision. It would draw more attention to his location, but that was fine. Dismissing the bow he ran down the hall, flashlight full beam and knife cleaning up anything that managed to come out of the doors after the initial barrage. He looked for any sign of life.

"Where are you!"

The sound of clacking jaw bones came ahead of him.

An open door.

Three undead.

One pinned a small body to the ground.

The victim's feet kicked frantically under the dead weight.

The remaining two already turned to face his position, pus-like saliva drooled from their orifices. They lunged at him. The flashlight dropped and he gripped the first by the elbow, twisting sideways, he threw it past hard enough to ensure it'd crash into the wall behind. Simultaneously, he buried his knife hilt deep into the skull of the other hostile. It dropped, a puppet with cut strings. He grasped the last one by its putrid neck, fingers seeping easily into the decayed flesh, he crushed its neck to paste. Hollow sounds of a broomstick clattering to the ground followed the corpse's quick exit in the same direction as its accomplice. Stopping for a brief moment to take stock of the world around him, Emiya could hear halls screaming with lethargic moans, doors cracking under the stress of struggling bodies, and the mismatched dragging of feet becoming a chorus gnashing teeth. The building itself turned into a plague of locus intent on devouring the two living organisms in its maw. He cursed whatever being made these creatures react so swiftly to life.

Luckily, the young girl had balled up in the corner. She was visibly shaking and it was too dark to thoroughly check her for wounds or bites, but she was well enough to move and that was something.

"You're alright now." A practiced line, which he found himself saying all too often even before the world went to hell.

The girl trashed wildly in his hands as he picked her up, deaf to his words and still fighting an unknown attacker. Thankfully, she was small or the task would've been much more cumbersome. A wet _Splat _came from outside the room and Emiya felt a tug at the back of his pant leg, he spun around and crushed the animated corpse's head.

It was time to move, he held the struggling girl close, trying not to use too much strength, and bolted out into the hallway. Weaving through the gauntlet of clattering teeth, he emerged onto the roof of the building. The crisp night air slowed the beating of his heart and wash away urgency. Silence and stealth would again become necessary to move around unmolested.

Shifting the weight of the girl in his arms, she was limp as a sleeping child or a. . . he stopped the train of thought and looked to confirmed the direction of the business park from his new location. There would be vacant houses untouched by chaos on the way, he could use that for short reprieve to confirm the well being of the girl. With a bit of luck, there would also be a change of clothes for her to use. He would rather not have to take a side trip to a department store but the smell of dirty clothes and other unmentionable odors that wafted off the girl said otherwise. How long had she been in that room?

_BANG. BANG. BANG._

A signal that he'd already spent too much time musing drug him back to action. He cradled the girl closer to his chest and vaulted over the roof's protective fencing. The three-story plummet to the courtyard was over in an instant and he rushed off into the relative safety of the night.

* * *

Trying to write and build tension/suspense in a story that doesn't give you the option to use pages to your advantage is hard. I think I may have put the wrong genre tag but, we'll see.

Also, a quick mention that this is might be a spoiler heavy story for those you aren't caught up with the manga, but given the rate I put things out I dunno if that is even a concern. Not to mention, the manga is still on going so, whatever I guess.

Way to short but I'd rather put it out instead of taking years to get it longer


	3. Chapter 3

The sounds of the stirred dead swirled around Emiya on his way back into the suburban area. He kept to the high ground when he could to avoid any surprises and eventually reached far enough that the sounds settled.

Quickly, he laid the girl out onto the asphalt. Using his flashlight and the moon he scanned the bare extremities of the girl's body checking for anyone bites or wounds. Her body and clothes were both intact. However, said clothes were soiled to the point that continued use would put her at risk of a non-reanimating infection. Just as he feared.

Next, he opened each of her eyes checking for abnormal pupil dilation. Even if she wasn't infected, brain damage could end her anyway. The reacted normally. Emiya could feel relief building up at this point and made a point to check her for breathing and check her pulse for irregularities.

Once again, all clear.

He scooped the girl back up into his arms and immediately moved to check for a safe shelter. House after house, he scanned for the bare minimum of intact and mostly sealed entrances before he would place his ear to a window. Three brisket knocks to listen for even the slightest bit of movement or moaning vocalization. It took a few houses before he found one that hinted no movement from inside. It was one-story and only a few of the windows showed signs of damage, for a temporary shelter it would do just fine.

Grasping the door handle he slowly pushed his magical energy into the locking mechanism until he heard a small ting of cracking metal. The door slowly creaked open and he was greeted by the stale air of an abandoned house as he moved inside. His flashlight cut through the void like a sword through flesh and revealed a hallway devoid of any life.

He projected thick rebar and planted it into the ground behind the closed front door before turning to venture down the long front hall. He eventually came to the den.

Two chairs and a couch surrounded a coffee table, and in the center of the room, on the wall, a television that would no longer broadcast anything. Standard living-room defining features.

He felt a pang irony surge through him.

"This will do." He whispered and laid the small girl onto a love-seat styled couch before taking a seat on an armchair that was across the table from it.

He sank back deep into the leather cushions and let his magical enhancements fade. A familiar sensation of weakness came over his body and reminded him that he was only human. With a weary sigh, he ran his hand threw his hair.

"What am I going to do now?"

Rushing into Randall Corp with a small child was not an appealing idea, even if he was confident it could be done. Could he spare the time to find a safe house for the child or even feel right leaving someone so young to themselves? What would happen if he ran across more survivors during such a trip? How could he make sure they would stay safe as he set off on his mission? While they may have been fine until now, what if something happened and he wasn't there to stop it?

A sense of melancholy poured over Emiya as his thoughts spiraled deeper downward. The logic that was like breathing for him quickly turned him into a drowning man desperately flailing for land. He cursed the slow-paced nature of the undead threat. It gave him too much freedom to move, too much rest, and too much time to think. But despite all that, he couldn't help but feel everything was slipping through his fingers as fast as running water.

He scoffed at himself and sat up.

"The rest of the rooms still needed to be check."

Turning his flashlight on again, he proceeded with an unnecessarily thorough house tour. Thankfully the open areas of the house were what he was expecting, lots of dust, nobodies, and eerily preserved. Aside from that, he was met with the pleasant surprise that there was a working gas stove along with a decent amount of non-perishable food items in the kitchen. They weren't going to make any dishes worth speaking about, but he figured his new companion would be happy to eat a warm, half-decent meal after waking up.

A stray thought that the little girl may not wake up again crossed his mind causing him to bite back a grimace.

It was a silly notion, he had checked her and she was fine. But then, so had others in the past.

"Don't think."

He still needed to check the closed doors.

The first belonged to the couple who owned the home, the signs of struggle were all he needed to know what took place here.

He closed the door and continued. The next two doors led to a bathroom and an office respectively. The only thing of note was that there was still clean water left in the tank of the toilet. His companion was going to have to use that to wash, naturally, he'd boil it and add a few drops of bleach first just to be safe.

Last, a door with a name placard hanging on it.

"Kurumi."

The owners must have had a daughter. It was a tidy room with telltale signs that it belonged to a teenage girl. He would be able to solve the problem of fresh clothes for his companion now.

He pulled the cover sheet off the bed and returned to cover the sleeping lump on the couch before sinking back into his chair and shutting his eyes.

* * *

"I want to save everyone. I don't want to let those in front of me suffer."

Emiya returned to consciousness and took in the room. No longer pitch black but the deep, dull blue of predawn, he affirmed that it was still just him and a sleeping child.

Not being attacked in the middle of the night allowed him to get the bare minimum of sleep, it was a welcome boon. Still, he needed to double-check her condition. To make sure she hadn't died in the middle of the night by some undiscovered injury.

He held his index finger just under her nose. Small, relaxed breaths of air tickled the length of his finger. After that, her carotid artery. The steady throb of her heart pushing blood through the veins at a measured pace painted the picture of perfect health, as far as he could tell.

With a sigh of relief, he left for the kitchen. All he could do now was cook some food, boil some water in a pot for cleaning, and wait for her to wake up.

* * *

With a yawn and a stretch, Ruu slowly peeled off her covers and sat up. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes she looked around her room. Only this wasn't her room and she was still in her school uniform. A wave of confusion washed over her as she wondered why she was sleeping on the couch. She couldn't remember anything after she left for school yesterday morning.

She strangely felt as though she just had a terrible nightmare and desperately needed to see her parents or sister. The small girl made to call out but the words wouldn't leave her mouth. Her throat was sore and her mouth felt like she was sucking on cotton.

Her tiny hands curled and gripped her blanket hard. Panic started to grow in her chest and she shrunk back into the arm of the couch. She had a sense that even if she could yell, a monster under the couch would jump out and grab her. So, in place of calling for help, she hid her head under the cover.

Surely her mother and father hadn't left for work yet, they'd always see her and her sister off to school in the morning. If she just waited long enough, one of them would come.

The _clack_ of a bowl being set on a table touched her ears.

"It seems you're awake. How do you feel?"

The voice was warm and soft, she knew this voice. Slowly peeking out from the makeshift hiding place she could feel her eyes well up.

It was her papa.

In an instant she threw off the blanket and leapt towards him, stumbling in the process. He caught her before she could hit the ground.

She was so happy.

"Dad!" She voiced happily despite the hoarseness of her throat. She made to hug him only to be sat back down on the cushion of the couch.

"I..." Her father started to speak. But he paused while looking at her, knelt, and gently rubbed her head.

"Eat first okay, we have a lot to do today."

His smile was shining. The girl wondered if something good happened this morning.

* * *

The girl sitting in front of him happily ate the chicken noodle soup. It hurt his chef's pride to call heating something from a can, "cooking," but he swallowed the bitter pill of life for the smile.

"Still... she's delusional. It could be a possible head injury I didn't notice, but aside from tripping on her blanket her motor skills seem intact." Emiya thought to himself.

By the time the girl finished eating, Emiya had concluded that the massive amount of trauma she suffered lead her to a sort of mental break. It broke his heart to think about how terrifying the events suffered must have been.

"If only I could have-" He stopped his thoughts before trailing down the rabbit hole, he had bigger issues.

"Daddy? Dad?" A small voice broke him out of his daze. It was still a fair bit raspy, but it was getting better now that she had fluids entering her system.

"Sorry, what were you saying?"

The small pout he received over his lack of attentiveness was blinding. The girl's puffed out cheeks looked more than pinchable but he restrained himself from teasing his "daughter." The fact that he could even consider such a thing spoke to how powerful a child's innocence could be in the midst of a tragedy. It was a shame to think of her inevitable return to reality.

"I mean it, I'm really, really sorry." Emiya once again patted the girl's rat's nest of hair.

"Where's mommy and Rii?"

"Most likely dead." He thought.

"They left for work and school." He said with a smile. "I kept you home today because you looked a little sick. Do you feel okay now?"

"Sleepy." The girl yawned.

Small, vague replies littered the conversation from that point, he couldn't risk any specifics and cause an instance of cognitive dissonance. The last thing he needed was a small child breaking down and alerting everything in the vicinity.

Eventually, he breached the most important subject of the girl needing a bath. He used the excuse that the power was out to explain why the shower wasn't working and told her how to use the towel and water pot.

In the meantime, Emiya exited the house and made his way to the roof. The sky was gray with rain bloated clouds. They tinted the surrounding area in a calming aura that could easily lure a careless man into silly mistakes. Moving through the rain with a child would be difficult.

Emiya pulled an earpiece from a very small pouch at his waistline and plugged it into the radio device he wore at his neck and switched it on. Closing his eyes, he listened to static fill his ear as he clicked through different frequencies. FM then AM.

The buzzing cotton consumed his focus as he listened for anything, finally, a few drops of rain tapping the back of his neck broke him out of the trance.

"Nothing today as well."

It was a small hope that he would ever catch survivors broadcasting for help, but it put his mind at ease to have another avenue of information. Below him, he could hear a small voice calling for her father out the backdoor.

He dropped down from his perch, the small girl was considerably cleaner now and wearing a fresh set of loosely fitting clothes. The rat's nest of hair still sat on top of her head.

"Can you brush my hair?" She asked gingerly.

"Of course."

How long had it been since he last brushed another human's hair, he couldn't remember. Still, he slowly and gently worked through it while thinking of reasons for them to travel into the city once it was finished.

* * *

Rain pattered against Emiya's umbrella as he walked the vacant city streets. He could hear the faint humming of the girl at his side as they weaved at a leisurely pace around wreckage and any zombie that hadn't taken instinctive cover from the rain.

What did the wrecked vestiges of civilization look like to the girl, he wondered as his eyes fixed on a large crowd of completely motionless corpses standing in an intersection. He came to a stop, his hand flexing slightly around the small hand in his grip.

Whatever it was, he thought, it must be fields of daisies.

"Daddy?"

The mass ignored the rain and stood huddled together facing inwards. This was the first time he encountered such a sight and it made old scars itch with anticipation.

"Trace on," Emiya whispered. A rod of molten fire and cold iron plunged down his spine modifying his body to superhuman levels. The world bloomed with his expanded senses.

"I was wondering if you could close your eyes for daddy."

"But why?"

Narrowing his eyes he looked closer at the group they were slowly advancing toward. The stillness was unnatural, not even the lopsided balancing that some of the more deteriorated ones would often exhibit could be seen.

"Well, I was going to cast a magic spell that will get us closer to mommies work. But it only works if good little girls close their eyes." He stooped down to pick the girl up with his free arm.

He was met with a small pout but tightly closed eyes. Emiya smiled, this girl must have trusted her father.

"Hold on tight and count to ten." He folded the umbrella.

The cool rain ran down his face. He knew this would be risky, but he had to see what was happening.

"Start counting, now."

His legs pushed off the ground with an explosive force that cracked the cement he had been standing on as he ran at a full sprint toward the unsettling crowd. The raining bit at his face with stinging force forcing him to narrow his eyes to avoid injury. He felt her hands grip at the edges of his breastplate and a tiny face turn into his body.

A second before he was within an arms reach of the mass he launched himself into the air. The aim was to sail in a large arc over the dead, giving him a good view of the situation.

It felt like he jumped straight into a pool of mud as the sickly sweet scent of magic assaulted his nose.

It was too late to stop.

It was too late to avoid sailing straight into a bounded field.

* * *

Since there seem to be some confused people. Shirou isn't doing the whole nerve circuit shtick. I was simply adding some flair to the use of magic circuits as like a "his body is warming up and changing" type of thing. If he was using nerve circuits I would've typed that out to be the case in the narrative.

But please, kill me anyway.

I'm starting to think I maybe have this story listed under the wrong genre, might switch it to action just to be safe.

Not sure if it matters at all.

Ch3 of my less popular story. o3o


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